Have you seen how much Anthropologie is charging for their ethnic print fabric beach chairs? A whopping $268.00! Print magazines are also showing the sling chairs all dressed up in custom fabrics with a “custom” price tag.
Anthropologie Pemba Chair:

I started out thinking I would try to copy this exactly, but decided I wanted to do it my own way.

So, I got to wondering how hard this could be to convert an off-the-shelf nylon clad frame into a jaw dropping, guest worthy conversation piece. How hard??? Not hard at all.

First of all, you need a frame. I discovered a store called The Christmas Tree Shops that had a sale going on.
What’s more, there is a real CTS on the southside of Indianapolis. One beautiful late May evening, I trucked down to their store and picked up four chairs in plain nylon for $19.99 each.

1. First of all, you have to remove pesky staples that anchor the nylon pocket onto the dowels.

2. Remove the dowels. You may want to photograph how the fabric rolls around the top and bottom dowels of the chairs and how the pocket threads through the stationery dowels and the removable dowel holds the sling in place.

3. Unthread the sling from the dowels.

4. Remove the stitching from the top and bottom pockets, press with a cool iron and use for a pattern.

7. For extra strength and because it looks so good, I did some saddle stitching on top of the seamed fabric.
(Saddle stitching is just a cooler name for topstitching.)

8. Cut and pin a lining fabric (right side to right side) onto the front of your sling fabric. Leave a 10″ to 12″ section open on one side in order to turn the fabric right side out.

9. Clip off the corners to reduce the bulk.

10. Turn your sling right side out and press.

11. Stitch the opening closed about 1/8″ from the folded edge of the opening.

12. Fold the top and bottom over 2″ and topstitch the dowel pockets.

You’re finished! Refer to your first photos to see how those pockets thread through the top dowels so you can slide the removable dowels into the pockets. The first side you do is easy, it gets trickier to get the second side secured. You just have to wrestle with it.

And here’s what it looks like when you use another print fabric for the back lining (chair on the left) vs. just using cotton canvas as the lining fabric (chair on the right).

You can always sand down the frames to get the old worn wood look. I decided to keep the finish for protective purposes.

You saw it here first. I’d love to see what you come up with. Be a good neighbor and link back to the step by step tutorial right here.

wow! i have some sling-back chairs that are relatively antique….and they’ve been sitting in my garage for nearly 25 years because i don’t know the cloth measurments to make the new cloth seats. any chance in the whole world that you could kinda/sorta measure yours and let me know the width and the length of the fabric? i would be sooooo appreciative! i might actually now be ale to those these things! thanks so much in advance.

i’ve had two antique frames like these sitting in my garage for 25 years! any chance you could please send me the length and the width of the fabric pieces you used so that i could finally use these things. i’m so proud of you!

Jenni-Place the chair flat on the ground. The distance from the top of the seat bar to the bottom of the seat bar has to be you MINIMUM amount of fabric. You even need to add a number of inches to that. If you sent me a photo with the measurements, I could tell you how long and wide to cut your fabric (sling). Acutally, the blue and yellow one is a little skimpy.

Your revamp of those chairs is just wonderful! if I ever find any like that I may borrow your idea! I don’t have a blog but if I did I’d of course give you credit. Thanks for sharing your great idea!
Take care, VBg

Love these chairs..so pettry and whimsical..love all the gorgeous colors too! i agree..they don’t seem too comfortable..but i’ll still take them! have a lovely weekend..do visit my blog when you have a moment! xx meenal